


Adjusting for Unanticipated Factors

by MicrosuedeMouse



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 06, References to s03e16 Virtual Systems Analysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25140382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MicrosuedeMouse/pseuds/MicrosuedeMouse
Summary: “Hey, Abed,” Annie said slowly. “Do you remember the time you told me you were never going to get married?”“Yeah,” he answered. “That day in the Dreamatorium, when Troy and Britta were out for lunch together. Why do you ask?”
Relationships: Annie Edison/Abed Nadir
Comments: 10
Kudos: 121





	Adjusting for Unanticipated Factors

**Author's Note:**

> Jotting down my original notes for this fic made me realise that a) I have an enormous soft spot for unconventional (or botched) proposal stories, and b) there's a very strong chance that that's because I grew up loving the story of how my mom accidentally ruined my dad's proposal, heheh.

For them both to have a whole weekend off was a luxury.

The movie Abed had been working on was taking a break from filming while the lead actor recovered from a stunt-gone-wrong, and the director and producers tried to rework the shooting schedule accordingly; Annie had a rare guaranteed break while the FBI’s LA offices were being fumigated. It wasn’t that the two of them never got to spend time together, but they both lived with strange and sometimes unpredictable schedules, so a whole two days was a novelty. They’d made a deal over a week ago: no chores, no work talk, no obligations. Just Annie and Abed and whatever they felt like doing.

On Saturday morning that meant sleeping in, getting up just long enough to brush their teeth so they didn’t have to contend with morning breath, and then going back to bed. They spent the next hour or two alternating between lazy sex and drowsy cuddles. After a shared shower and a late (very late) breakfast of pancakes and special drink, they curled up on the couch to make a dent in Abed’s growing to-watch list. The TV stand had been home to an ever-changing stack of DVDs lent to him by his coworkers ever since a few of them had started swapping obscure favourites, spending their breaks and bar nights talking about the films that had drawn them into the industry – ‘competing to see who’s the biggest nerd,’ Annie had put it, affectionately.

The apartment’s living room had been their big splurge, once they both had steady paycheques coming in. A huge TV and a proper sound system, so Abed could immerse himself completely – and a spacious, comfortable sofa. As much as Annie had enjoyed perching on the arm of his favourite chair for all those years back in apartment 303, she liked the idea of a proper couch, one where she could cuddle up to him without any of her limbs cramping. (The chair wasn’t gone: it sat down at one end of the couch, next to Troy’s, for any time their jet-setting billionaire third amigo decided to drop in and crash for a few days.)

By mid-afternoon, Abed was sprawled sideways on the sofa, his left arm across the back and his right draped over the cushioned arm, with Annie tucked between his spread legs and leaning back on his chest. Every so often he’d drop an absent-minded kiss on top of her head, usually when she reacted to something onscreen and momentarily jarred him out of his concentration on the story.

The credits rolled after their second movie of the day, and Abed turned down the volume, but otherwise he was quiet. Probably still absorbing the whole thing – sometimes, especially with the pretentious art films some of his work friends liked so much, it took him a little longer to fully develop his opinions. Annie didn’t mind. His hand found her left shoulder, rubbing lightly and fondly into the muscle through her blouse, and she hummed in contentment and tipped her head back against him, letting her eyes drift shut.

The DVD returned to its menu and looped a few times, ignored now as the two of them sat in silence. After a couple of minutes, Annie reached up and caught his fingers in her own. “Hey, Abed,” she said slowly, and felt him shift, looking at the top of her head. She turned a little so she could see his face, and he could see hers. “Do you remember the time you told me you were never going to get married?”

He looked at her for a moment. “Yeah,” he answered. “That time in the Dreamatorium, when Troy and Britta were out for lunch together. And I had run all those simulations trying to figure out the future, and I never saw myself amounting to anything, and eventually you had to rescue me from kind of a meltdown.”

“…Yeah,” she agreed, and he realised he was bringing her down, talking about all the bad parts of that day. In his mind, it wasn’t a bad _memory_ , because it had brought them closer together, and he’d learned something. But he knew she still sometimes felt guilty about how she’d acted. So he tried to move away from that part.

“Why do you ask?”

Annie looked down at her lap, then, apparently self-conscious, and her hand slipped from his so she could twist her fingers together. He waited, and after a moment or two she asked, “…Do you still think that?”

He considered that for a few seconds, then pushed her off his chest so he could sit up better and turn her around to face him. She looked surprised and a little uncertain at his seriousness, but he didn’t speak until he had himself properly rearranged, taking both of her hands in his own. “There were factors I didn’t account for that day,” he admitted, looking her directly in the eye. This wasn’t a subject to be discussed lightly, he knew, and he didn’t want to risk any misunderstanding. “And honestly, I was feeling pretty pessimistic at the time. If I’d known then even a bit of what I know now, the results would likely have been very different.”

“Oh?” she asked, very quietly. She’d gotten so much more confident since they met – he knew that for a fact – but when they were at home, he still saw this side of her some days: nervous, tentative, hopeful. She was trying not to chew her lip. “So… if you ran the simulations now, what do you think you might find?”

Abed looked at her hard for a moment, searching her eyes. (She’d told him, recently, that she still didn’t think she’d ever met someone who could look as deep into her as he could.) “Well, there’s one more factor I’d have to assess further, to really get an accurate read,” he explained. She looked back at him, curious, so he asked her plainly: “Do you want to marry me?”

The complicated mixture of uncertainty and hope and self-consciousness melted away from her face, and she simply stared at him, stunned. A flush rose in her cheeks. “Is– is that a _proposal?_ ” she managed to stammer after a few seconds, eyes wide.

“Well,” he told her evenly, “only if you want it to be. We can revisit it later – take the more traditional route, if you’d prefer.” He searched her face, and she still looked at a loss, her mouth hanging open slightly. So he went on: “You’re the one who brought it up, so I feel like it’s a safe enough question to ask. The thing is, Annie, that I want to marry _you_ , so if the feeling is mutual, I think it’s pretty likely that the new simulations would find that I _do_ get married.”

And then, suddenly, her face broke open. She _beamed_ at him. “Yeah,” she said, her voice a little breathy, like she was holding back tears. “It’s mutual. I wanna marry you. It’s what I’ve wanted for years, except lately I keep thinking about it in a way more _real_ way, like– like every morning I wake up and look at you and think, _I want that man to be my husband_ , only I didn’t know if that was something you wanted, too. Or if you’d want it later but not yet. Or if you’d be happy never doing that at all.”

He smiled at her – a huge smile, for him; the kind of smile he really didn’t show all that often. “I’m going to tell you a secret,” he said softly, squeezing her hands. “The day I told you I would never get married – I was in a bad place, yeah. But the biggest reason I believed it was that _you_ were the only woman I’d ever met that I could picture actually understanding me enough, and caring about me enough, to stick around for that long. But I didn’t think you’d ever want to _marry_ me.”

At that Annie _did_ start crying. “God, Abed, I hate that you ever felt that way. I love you _so much_ –”

“It’s okay. I love you too.” His smile grew gentler, and he let go of her hands so that he could reach up and wipe her tears away before leaning in and kissing her deeply. He didn’t want her to feel bad. “Let’s go ring-shopping tomorrow,” he suggested, hoping to remind her that this was a time to feel _good_. She reached up and clutched his hands on either side of her face, starting to giggle wetly, which he hadn’t quite expected.

A sort of half-laugh escaped him as he questioned, “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just–” She giggled again. “I just didn’t expect things to go this fast, when I asked whether your expectations had changed. It was just something I’d been thinking about, so… I was curious.”

“Do you want me to slow down?” Abed asked, running one thumb over the apple of her cheek.

“ _No_ ,” she answered, emphatically. “If I could get all of our friends here in the next couple of hours, I would marry you tonight.”

He laughed slightly, deciding not to point out that if they asked Troy to make it happen he _would_. Instead he pulled her in and kissed her again. “We’ll start with the ring.”


End file.
